


heraldry

by arachnida



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Gen, Horror, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Self-Harm, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:42:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22140493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arachnida/pseuds/arachnida
Summary: Time is finite when your bargaining chip has an expiration date.Or: the Veretian elite are literal vampires, Damen witnesses a transformation, and Nicaise tries to buy more time from Laurent who isn't interested in selling.
Relationships: Damen & Laurent (Captive Prince), Laurent & Nicaise (Captive Prince)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 14
Collections: Captive Prince Reverse Bang 2019





	1. sable

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Pretty blatant discussions of paedophilia/child sexual abuse, grief, death, dying; stuff that’s kind of my bread and butter. Not as evident here as in the later chapter.
> 
> Thank you [ksanne](https://myvelvet-goldmine.tumblr.com/) for enabling me ♥ and being unbelievably patient with me.

  
[ ](https://myvelvet-goldmine.tumblr.com/post/190093271277/blue-paint-highlighting-the-blueprint-of-his)

Every penetration is as sweet as currants. Every penetration is debasement.

Every moment is etched in his memory like scars, as scars; they are scars that only he can see. Every moment starts with eyes closed, ends when they open; they continue in sound, touch, taste. Ghosts whisper words he knows, believes, embodies. Fingers that have coaxed his mouth open, liquor-soaked sweetmeats and sugar coated intentions. Words carried on whiskers and breath that overstayed their welcome in the stagnant humidity.

_Such a lovely boy._

Curls that spun like gold, goose-down soft and pillowing his face. Uncle once told him it was as if the gods turned all that was soft and gentle and bright into a precious little prince.

_Such a sweet boy._

He had said it to Gustav and Martin and Cecil and countless other boys that Laurent could barely recall to this day. All their faces blended the same into soft cherub faced boys barely dropping their voices, dropping their guards for a morsel of affection.

_Good boy._

The last time he had been told that was on his deathbed, as his uncle gripped his eyes to brace him for the dark. All his blood ran cold that night, ice where heat should sit in his cheek, fingers with a faint tint of blue. The grip on his eyes had been the same as it had become in the past year: derisory.

Uncle left with the council that night. Laurent hadn’t registered tears had been falling from his eyes. His tears are no longer hot, as if every ounce of passion froze into calculated cruelty. He died, and yet he lives still. The memory did not die when he did; the sensation makes him wish for the end he was robbed of. Every ghost would choke him, every shadow miasmic in his memory.

_You’re much too old to play these games, Laurent._

A crash brings Laurent to his senses, followed by the sharp sting of his palms. Something is digging into his palms, embedding itself in his liminal flesh. Blue paint highlighting the blueprint of his not-quite-dead veins, golden hair and lashes rendered snow white.

His blood is like tar: sticky, black and tainted. His uncle’s blood is intermingled somewhere with Auguste’s, Father’s and Mother’s. The porcelain Kemptian vase, owned by his mother and her’s and her’s, is shattered, lacquer splintered with china shards across the floor.


	2. azure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Playlist is here, and it will probably have some real fucking weird shit and I Am Sorry](https://open.spotify.com/user/cobracunt/playlist/07tziUXbNrxm5YMQi5va2c?si=CYbECAJsRyqxSOMZsT3_Ig)

“Should he be here, Your Highness,” a lone female voice inquires, fan covering her lower jaw. 

“Having a guard dog sends a certain message, Vannes.” 

A piece of candied orange peel is offered to Damen. He can’t withhold an offended snarl, lips curling just enough for distaste without baring teeth. Biting the hand that fed him for show or murdering the Veretian prince in his sleep; both were good options for the occasion. 

“Not hungry,” Laurent less asks and states, tossing the proffered sweet onto the floor. It is just far enough that Damen would have to lean forward and use his tongue to bring it into his mouth. 

The option for murder continues to tempt him for the duration of dinner. Laurent offers no other treats or scraps, leaning back into his seat. He also doesn’t eat for himself, the way he sits too tense for the atmosphere. For all the idle looks he gets, Laurent is unbothered throughout dinner. No pet big or small drapes themselves over the prince, which saves Damen’s senses from being assaulted by sickly sweet perfume and chalis. Something about the atmosphere doesn’t sit right with him. 

Damen eyes Talik and Vannes, a perfectly striking pair as the former eyes the crowd as her mistress and prince discuss something with one another. The Regent eyes her; Damen notes that none of the council are women. 

“How long can you keep this up, I wonder.” 

“Better a step ahead than behind.” Laurent isn’t looking at her. 

“Does it matter if you’re dancing,” she asks with a note that Damen finds unfamiliar here. 

Every Veretian talks in riddles, he swears. 

He tunes out again, eyeing the other pets as they drape themselves over their owners. The one beside him, a mousey thing of frail frame and freckles like paint splatter on his fair skin, is overwhelmingly candy-scented and liquor-addled. It gives him as much of a headache as the chalis, eyes lead-heavy and brain foggy. He squints his eyes to refocus, eyes falling down to songbird-bone feet, thin and porcelain-- 

And bitten. Two perfect bite marks above his ankle bone. 

His eyes trace higher up his calves, thighs, buttocks. They all hide in plain sight, easily mistaken for discoloration. His master kisses his wrists, his arms pockmarked that same manner. Some are older, newer, fresher; all of them a marking, distinctly purple-black. They’re too perfect, not like human teeth. 

They’re proper fang marks. 

It gives Damen the courage and reason to scrutinize Talik as she kneels beside him, her head pillowed on her mistress’s thighs. Even her darker coloring can’t hide the same markings, speckled finely along her strong biceps and shoulders. Vannes idly plays with her hair and mouth, pulling back her skirt higher for ease of access. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Vannes herself was from Vask, much like her pet; all their women have skills in taming snakes and leopards, it seems. 

Her mouth opens softly to let a small exhale out. There’s something there, Damen knows it. 

He remembers Ancel in the gardens, expert mouth and vulgar, fiery upstart that he was - also speckled with freckles and red hair but Damen couldn’t remember if he had bite marks as well. 

“You’re antsy,” Laurent notes, crossing his legs. “Something caught your attention? A bitch you’d like to mount perhaps.” 

Damen has to forcibly restrain his mind from tempting him into punching Laurent until he no longer had a face to tempt anyone, let alone a mouth for taunting. But as he watches the Veretian, truly observes him, he sees the tension in his face; the thousand-yard stare; the way his fingers dig into his cheeks. He may very well be grinding his teeth. 

Damen scans the room again, the room empty of any threat and full of ribaldry. He looks back at Laurent and his body language for more clues. The prince is tight lipped as ever, looking back at Damen and tilting his head to the side. 

Damen looks back towards the front, where the Regent is discussing matters with Guion and Alduin. The child pet isn’t present. Damen can only assume he’s armed with his fork and spite in the crowd, the little grievance. He looks back and offers a genteel smile at Damen a frown to his nephew and nods. He announces his departure with a toast, the crowd barely paying attention to their personal matters and takes his leave. 

“And that’s our cue,” Laurent sighs, slipping up and gives a yank of Damen’s chain. “Come along.” 

As they start towards the chambers, Laurent takes a turn and Damen is made to follow. He hears that they are not alone, two men following behind them. He guesses they must be Jord and Orlant, two of the kingsmen and something of a matched set. Where Jord goes, Orland follows, and vice versa. And if Jord is loyal to the Prince, then Orlant follows suit for his sworn brother. 

Nicaise is against the wall, watching the procession. “That’s hardly fair.” 

Laurent stops them, turning to face the boy. “Oh, it’s not him.” 

Nicaise raises a brow. He doesn’t acknowledge the other men. “Will it?” 

“Never.” 

Damen takes the time to truly look at Nicaise, beyond his incomparable pubescent beauty - beyond his sapphire-blue eyes and chestnut-colored curls, his pale skin adorned in fine clothes and jewels. “Truly?” 

There are also bite marks on him. 

“One does not kill a stray to make a hound.” 

Even under the makeup and chains, Damen can see them. “But you will kill a dog to make a wolf.” 

All along his jawline and down his throat. “Alchemists still haven’t made lead into gold.” 

He feels sick knowing there’s more, a map leading down passes and valleys that needn’t be trekked. “Fool’s gold is still gold to the untrained eye.” 

“Until you state it’s not gold, yes.” Nicaise’s nose crinkles. He’s still a boy; occasional lapses of neutrality were expected for his age. He looks back at Damen and spits at his feet. “Staring is rude, you cretin.” 

He starts to walk off, giving one last look at the group before leaving for the night. 

Damen watches him go and then looks at Laurent. “Do you enjoy leading a little boy in circles by his nose?” 

Laurent surprises him: “Someone has to remind him that he’s smart for a child, but he isn’t the smartest in the room.” 

“Would that be you.” 

For the first time, Laurent restrains his tongue and continues forward down the hall with Damen’s chains tugging him to follow. The echoes of voices die down, the braziers fire seeming so distant as the stone sinks the heat. It is nighttime in Vere, much further north than Akielos in the spring, and still it seems far too cold for the time of year. It feels still, quiet- 

Not like the Kingsmeet and its grand heroic statues in the beaming sun and hot sand, but a meadow that still sank with loss and grief. Like fog that refused to let go of tombstones as a reminder of impermanence. 

“Where are we going,” Damen asks softly, not intending to be heard. Orlant keeps his face still while Jord’s mouth becomes a straight line. There’s hesitancy in his eyes. 

Laurent breaks the silence, but doesn’t face him. His tone betrays something Damen can’t place. “Don’t ask questions for answers that are better shown than told.” 

They climb down stairs through clandestine entrances, places one either looks for or stumbles into. Torches replace braziers, the heat dissipating step by step. They’re very likely underground at this point, everyone but Damen a shadow. The light hits his gold finery, each inch of paint and metal glittering against the walls and floor. He dislikes feeling vaguely like a lantern but continues on. 

They wind up before one last door and Laurent is the one who pushes it open. He looks back at the guards and nods, dismissing them. He looks back at Damen solemnly, an owlish blink of blue eyes that still pierce in the dim lighting. 

“I can only assure you that what transpires here will not happen to you.” 

It sounds more like a threat than anything as Damen steps inside, the coldest room he’s been in yet. 

There are torches and candles lit, the light catching on vials, beakers and cauldrons. What’s alarming is a massive table with straps in the middle of the room, surrounded by the Veretian council and select court members. Lord Berenger is present, surprised to see Damen with his prince and looks back at Laurent with a quizzical look. Laurent returns with a shake of his head. The brute from the ring, Govart, is strapped down to the table and fully clothed. If it weren’t for the alchemists and physicians, Damen wouldn’t have been wrong in assuming this was an interrogation. The council is before him, all five men and no women. Herode and Alduin eye him in the way one does a violent prisoner, not that he has any way to defend himself. Running would be equivalent to suicide. As he scans the room, Damen finds he is the only pet present. 

Guion isn’t looking at him, his gaze fixed on the prince. The neutrality on his face is too poised, hiding something. 

“Prince Laurent, is there a reason for your pet to be present for this.” 

“Cultural immersion.” Flippant. 

Laurent stiffens, turning to the Regent. It’s like watching a viper before it strikes.“The slave stays or I go. Your choice, Uncle.” 

Damen hears the sound of footsteps, guards blocking the exit to the chamber. 

“Petulant as always. Fine. But--” 

Laurent cuts him off. “I wouldn’t.” 

The Regent sneers, shaking his head. “You have had him whipped, thrown into the ring; pardon me for finding your sudden leniency hollow.” 

“This is a matter of taste, not altruism.” 

“And here I thought you would have made use for him. Can’t trust you to know the value of anything given to you.” Another shake of his head. 

“You give me a mongrel, expecting me to treat him as a prized hound.” 

Damen watches the two of them, no love between either or. Damen looks back at the brute on the table, noting he is breathing too shallowly. He seems paler than the bout at the rink, lips bluer than before. The room’s chill creeps up his spine, shudders down his body. 

“My dear brute. Did you know there was another title for your prince killer?” Laurent’s voice cuts through. Damen looks at him, not humoring his non-question. 

It doesn’t deter Laurent in any case. “There is a story that some tell their children, about the manticore eating the stars, but being unable to eat the moon. The stars, however, multiply in him, shining brighter and brighter, before burning the manticore alive in its own hubris. When the stars die, you can hear a faint roar.” 

Laurent didn’t need Damen to guard him. He needed to teach Damen a lesson. 

The dark and candlelight highlight how cold the room is, Damen struggling to control his chattering teeth and shivering. Where home, everyone radiated the warmth of the sun; here, the cold wasteland of a winter night. He exhales, breath visible for a moment before dissipating. A door opens and he sees two men, the like-pair from the council along with an addition. 

It is a chalice, silver, heavy and adorned with diamonds and sapphires. Guion is handling the metal, thick blacksmithing leather gloves on his hands up to his elbows. The tension between nephew and uncle is noticeable in the dark, thick enough to be cut with the dagger between them. Laurent offers his pale wrist, the blues of his veins even more stark against his coloring and dress. 

And like that, crimson stains the blade, thicker than water but not by much, the chalice catching his blood. Each drip seems so loud, the great hall almost cavernous in its atmosphere: cold, wet, and haunting. The Regent follows suit, his own blood blackened from the angle and his burgundy robes. Govart shows no fear, almost put off by the pretentiousness of it all. Damen had only seen that look in starved hounds before a hunt. Damen feels nausea and horror sit in his belly, adrenaline and fear rushing through his system. He is grateful for the lack of chalis in his system, watching as one by one, the court passes around the cup, head tilted back and drinking. The Veretians teeth are stained redder than pomegranates, thinner than honey but darker. Their lips are blushed like lions’ over a carcass, the stippled lacerations coming into view. 

They were myths.  
They were cautionary tales. 

He had been thrown to the beasts and found them to be monsters. 

The sound of his heartbeat is louder than the silence, he feels; surely these animals can hear it. And yet, they are consumed by their own ostentatious ceremony, passing the massive cup to one another and drinking the blood. 

The honey-haired youth from the gardens enters Damen’s mind and disappears in an instant. He wants to believe the gods are telling him that he is right to be concerned but that the boy is ultimately safe. There had been rumors of slavers in other parts of the world that would take in these children, sweet and unassuming lambs, and drain them. It had been said their purity and guilelessness, the desire to serve unconditionally, was a key factor to longevity. Surely- 

No, he realizes, that the pets of Vere are too spoilt, materialistic. One was as good as drinking wine for sobriety. 

The boy, the Chancellor's pet, had dirtied feet, cheek that hadn’t nested in silk sheets and natural pearls prior. He is made of grit and grime found in alleyways and clandestined bedrooms; something no child should have an intimate knowledge of. 

He watches the brute be handed the chalice, the cup brought to his lips. His slacked jaw spills, blood dribbling down his chin like a messy child’s. And at the last drop, the two men of the prince’s guard push down on Govart in time with a violent heave up from the henchman. He moans, blood and spittle beginning to foam around his mouth and dribble down his chin. 

Damen watches as Govart writhes in agony on the table, blood-soaked vomit bubbling up. He seizes, eyes rolling into his skull as two more guards jump to hold him down. Damen has to keep himself from following suit: it smells like war and dying. 

Govart is dying, he realizes: reanimating into something else. His skin begins to grey and blue, blotchy like a bruised corpse. Every bit of heat that made him alive begins to dissipate in the air, as if a draft is sucking out his very soul. The straps are tightened, Paschal and the medicinemen on standby. They hold themselves back, expecting the worst and hoping for the lesser of two evils. 

All while the man is screaming, vocal cords as raw as his hands. Damen sees them bright and red and angry. He had been clenching, digging into his palms to distract to no avail. He pushes up again, one of the straps creaking and close to breaking. And then he stills, chest sinking with one heavy exhale. 

The guards step back, looking to their betters. The court looks unbothered. Herode has the look of a man who smells dogshit under his boots, disdain coloring his face; the Regent has all the unimpressed air of nobility watching a subpar joust; and Laurent, idly looking until his nail beds, all the composure of a spoilt brat who seemed above the situation. Paschal moves towards the body, lifting Govart’s wrist to check his pulse at various points. He places his hand on the man’s sternum, stilling himself and the room. 

Damen squints in the dark to try and see - 

Govart makes a heavy gasp for air, like a man lost in the sea. He is still bruises and discolored, scars not healing or made more beautiful but instead hardened like stone. His blood-stained eyes search for nothing, wide and open. He’s not alive, but not dead either. He makes a retching cough, throwing up a small bit of bile before falling back onto the table. 

His eyes shut as he stills, chest heaving up and down for breath. 

A beat passes and Laurent opens his mouth. “Well, that was rather dramatic.” 

The Regent stiffens, choosing not to respond. He then makes a sweeping dismissive gesture, Vannes tittering behind her fan as the court rises and leaves. Damen feels his arms being lifted in the dark and he is pulled away from the chambers, and made to follow the guards as they take him back to the slaves’ chambers. 

Or he assumes until they’re some steps past that in front of Laurent’s. 

The ox-face, Orlant, grunts, a firm knock against the hardwood frame. He and Jord tighten their grip in tandem against Damen. They are so warm, Damen realizes, as he eyes their profiles in the dim light of the braziers. Rich warm colors of reds and blush, imperfect pores and musk are made apparent. 

Different from Laurent and Herode and Lord Beringer and -- 

Laurent materializes in front of a now open doorway. His wrists are bandaged and red, as he gestures the three men. He leads them to the chamber, fine furniture and an exquisite rug of Patran quality underneath his writing desk. An open palm, and Damen is forced to his knees in the center, the carpet pressing into his knees. The whole of his room is swathed in candlelight, the moon hung high in the sky and all the stars cloaked in clouds. 

“Leave us.” 

“Your Highness-” 

“I did not ask; I command.” 

Damen can’t lift his head, Laurent holding it down like a disobedient dog’s. “Stay.” 

The hand lingers longer than either of them expected, sun-warm curls tangling in porcelain fingers. Laurent slips his hand off Damen’s scalp and makes his way to the chaise lounge, draping himself with his upper body propped against the headrest and the toes of his boots against the floor. Eyes like a leopard following prey. 

Laurent watches Damianos kneel, the gold as heavy as leather for such a brute. He crosses his ankles, watching the other man fight his present situation with his body language. There is no reverence, no performative piety; even the fires of lust, craven and base, have all the spark of cinder-caged embers. The air is thin, a thread bowing from tension on the verge of snapping. The Akielon isn’t stupid per se but too honor-bound, as much as he is loathed to admit to himself. 

Laurent almost envies him. What he’d give to be able to take people at their word again. 

“So you’ll kill me.” It’s said with the resignation of a cornered predator weighing its options. 

They sit in silence, the situation settling between them. Every word has all the weight of chess pieces. Laurent rises, straightening himself and leaning forward. His hands are clasped on his knees, a politician leaning closer to a deal. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you.” 

“Dying? Not particularly.” For a man of former power, Damianos lacks a certain inclination for verisimilitude. Laurent feels something tug on his lip, inside his cheek and stops it with a bite. _Never humor with laughter,_ Uncle told him once. _Pleasure lowers your guard._

He disavowed too little too late. 

“How do you imagine I would kill you; a sword?” Humoring without enjoyment. 

Damianos stiffens a bit, caught off-guard. He raises his head, making eye contact with Laurent. “You wouldn’t—“ 

“I would.” He unclasps his hands, straightening back up. “I don’t appreciate being told what I would and wouldn’t do. Animals cannot read the minds of their betters.” 

“You would drink from—“ 

“Absolutely not. Blood from an animal would be cleaner than yours. Gutting you would be an insult to game.” Laurent couldn’t muster more distaste in his tongue on his deathbed. 

Silence hung between them for a beat or three, old wood and mortar creaking with ears pressed into them. And there it was: a little spark in his eyes. “You don’t like drinking blood.” 

“There’s nothing to like.” Half-truths were a tongue’s version of a waltz. 

“You don’t like killing—“ 

Laurent cuts him off. “It’s in my nature.” 

“Even a dog can rise above its nature.” 

They are quiet for a moment, Damen’s mind working to untangle Laurent’s. “So that’s it. You acquire blood elsewhere. You won’t get your hands dirty otherwise.” 

His tone is harsh. Laurent catches it. “Implying I’m a what? A coward?” 

“Veretians will lie and double-deal to get ahead, subterfuge. You would hire a mercenary in your court to kill your father in cold blood, if he hadn’t already been done in.” 

Laurent waits for the spiel to end and tilts his head in a manner not unlike a panther regarding prey. “Didn’t the Akielon prince die the same?” 

The question ends on a disingenuous note before he continues. “Oh, no, he didn’t. His own brother, a bastard, was barbaric enough to slaughter him with his own hands over a whore who knew how to play the game. Their father was in rapid declining health, not too long beforehand. Of course, it is my understanding that his mistress, and not the rightful queen, was at his side. _Les chiens ne font pas des chats_.” 

“That wasn’t all—“ Damianos has all the guile of a newborn fawn finding its legs, but enough good sense to stop before a trap. 

Laurent watches him from the corner of his eye. “Oh. Am I supposed to believe the idle gossip of a lowly soldier turned into a concubine for my disposal? Were you deigned significant enough to be within earshot of the court’s machinations?” 

_Were you truly careless enough to present your back to the biggest threat to your ascension?_

He can still feel his uncle’s hands as he wipes his tears, the sting from his ears down his throat. The taste of salt with distinct origins, indistinguishable in their melding on his palette. Knives at least brought an end to a release. 

Laurent eyes Damianos with contempt, sharp glare to his jugular. “You have no leg to stand on.” 

The candlelight catches Damianos’s curls, cheekbones, jawline; a haloed icon to his people. “You are eating the poor, the people you take care of.” Even his words are delivered with the magnitude of a venerated saint’s. 

“And your people groom children into their adulthood to service the elite.” 

“We don’t drink their blood and convert them into...into what you are.” 

“No. You turn them into something worse.” 

Heroes of their own stories never see their sins, Laurent learned some time ago. Privilege made one blind to their station. Falling from grace made it easier to see your own flaws, Laurent reminded himself. _I hate to see you grow up like this when you were such a lovely boy._

Lovely boys grew into fragile youth, then morphed into haunted men. Fat from their cheeks would melt into sharp profiles, eyes sinking into their sockets with shades of grey and purple. Iron formed their rib cages, trapping shallow lungs and weak hearts in an iron maiden. Every ounce of naivety was leached into something abnormal and obsessive. 

A fetish. 

Damen hears more than sees Laurent’s nostrils flare at the smell of his blood. He can see in his mind’s eye his barely-contained contempt, the distinct curl of his snarl: an acrid acrimony was the only thing to exist between them. Laurent’s every word is sharpened to precision, every accuracy taken to deal the most personal of wounds. 

He has no idea how much he has contributed to the creature he sees before him. 

“Out.” 

Guards come into the room unceremoniously, readying to grab Damen before the Akielon rises to his feet. “With pleasure, Your Highness.” They skip the pleasantries as he is escorted to the pets’ chambers for the evening. 

And for a moment, it’s still and quiet, the moon Laurent’s only company. 

He hears a belled cat long before it enters his room, smells honeysuckle and salt water from pearls waft under the threshold of his doorway. The soft padding of bare feet announce Nicaise’s arrival. He is leisurely, a thick, fat peach in his palm as he takes a large bite from it. Juice dribbles down his lips, the fragrant sugary smell blooming in the room. 

“You’re old enough, Nicaise,” Laurent drawls more than chastises. Some things never changed. Or didn’t easily in the span of two years in any case. 

Nicaise passes a cursory look over before padding his way to the armchair across, sprawling from armrest to armrest with his gangly legs kicked out. The fine gold bangles on his ankles glitter, the moonlight catching them and making the threads shimmer. Candlelight from the table and braziers illuminate his cherub face, the signs of a cleft in his chin and the slimming of baby fat softening in the dark. 

“You want any?” Nicaise says, street-urchin syntax more for disrespect than lack of class. 

They both know Laurent can’t always eat food, not when he is truly hungry. Nicaise takes another bite, the nectar dribbling a sticky trail down his pale throat. It follows his jugular, staining his nightshirt and pooling at the juncture of his clavicle. He sits like a spoilt brat in a private orchard, a tempting nymph but lacking the audience necessary for his charm. His voice had shown signs of breaking in the past seasons. If he were a girl, he would be married off by now; as a man, he was still too young to truly offer any real companionship. As a person, he had been molded by the court for too long. Every interaction is a waiting game and both of them know time is finite. 

Nicase looks at Laurent from his desk and picks up the letter opener, the ivory handle warm from proximity to the candle. He looks at his wrists as he has a dozen and a half times; speckled with scars and freckles, y’s in his blue veins under soft skin. Every line and crease perforated for the knife as if his body was made to be cut, pierced and mutilated. 

Laurent feels Nicaise’s eyes on him, can see the contraction of his pupils and the minute stiffening of his body. He has his wrist upward, blood dripping into the delta of his palm and pooling in every crevice. It’s shallow but showy, intended for shock and enticement over threat. 

The difference between a leopard bringing down a kill and cub playing with its food. 

“You are much better than this,” Laurent drawls. “You’ve made better plays than this with my Uncle, Nicaise.” 

He gets up from the lounge and walks to his chair behind the desk, settling in front of Nicaise. He conveniently ignores the bleeding wrist in front of him, not wanting to encourage the terrible attempt. 

“We both know it’s been at least a week since you’ve fed,” Nicaise snaps, full eyebrows furrowed and cheeks tight in a sneer. “You’re not fully immortal. You still need to eat, hunt.” 

“Is that really what this is about,” Laurent looks up at the youth, a bit of humor in his otherwise sardonic demeanor. “Nicaise, you’re truly smarter than this.” Laurent’s expression slides into something almost like mirth. Nicaise’s blood is sickly sweet like candy, sugar in every drop; he could go by the smell alone. 

“Well?” 

“Yes.” Laurent looks up at the boy before him, petulant as ever. 

“Aren’t you starving.” 

“Yes, but I already know where you want to go with this. You can’t keep making the same play, expecting me to respond any different.” 

“If I stay...” Nicaise starts, trying to grasp at threads that keep unraveling. 

“Do you learn to swim to catch a boat.” 

Nicaise’s eyes, beautiful and blue and so venomous, glare at Laurent for what he’s worth. “Fuck you.” 

“Interesting choice of words. I distinctly recall a rumor pertaining to whether or not my cock is in working order.” 

“That’s not what I meant, and I’m done talking in riddles with you.” 

“Then tell me, Nicaise - what do you want in layman's terms.” 

“You know exactly what I want.” Nicaise pushes his bleeding wrist with emphasis towards Laurent. 

“Say it.” 

“I want you to make me into what you are.” 

“Why.” 

“You know why.” 

“I do, but I want you to hear this scheme of yours aloud-” 

“You don’t want someone else to succeed where you failed.” 

Laurent crosses his ankles, tucking his left foot under the right. He leans back in his chair, extended his legs and rolls his shoulders and neck. For the first time, the weight of his immortality sinks in, heavy and cold. 

“Answer me.” Nicaise’s petulance seeps through his attempts at authority. 

Laurent still stays quiet, watching the red blood rise in Nicaise’s adolescent cheeks, round and soft like barely-ripe peaches. There’s a delicate flush blooming in his earlobes and creeping along the shell, the blues of his eyes and sapphires rendered violet. 

“What flowers did Uncle give you the first time he fucked you.” 

Nicaise’s hesitance at answering says enough for him. Laurent doesn’t miss the slight tension around his mouth and nose, the very quiet sound of his molars clacking against each other. The even quieter sound of the muscles in his palms squeezing against each other and his nails dip into his skin. 

“Roses.” 

Laurent blinks, blue to blue, snake to cat. “What kind of roses.” 

“White.” A feint. 

“What kind of roses.” Coyote to rabbit; Laurent always calls Nicaise’s bluffs. 

He can smell them in his room, on his end table by his head. He can see them from the corner of his eyes, arranged in a neat bouquet with baby’s breath and grass. He feels one of the blades tickle his cheek as he kneels. 

“I don’t know – plain white roses.” 

The perfume of the flowers did nothing to mask the musk that flooded his senses all those years. 

“What did they look like.” 

He still can smell a hint of salt when he’s in the gardens, amongst the pets and courtiers. 

“They had—they hadn’t bloomed yet. They were starting to.” 

“And did they ever bloom.” 

Nicaise’s face is etched in that painful confusion that Laurent had worn many times at the boy’s age. Where the writing on the wall is all but carved in every corner and inescapable, refusing denial. “They died. Before they bloomed, they died.” 

The last bouquet was sweet pea and camellias. 

_You were such a lovely boy._

Every infatuation is a prelude for sickness. Sickness is the reprisal for taboos. “Uncle is as subtle as you let him be.” 

“It doesn’t mean anything. They’re just flowers. Everyone gives pets flowers, and jewels, and silks, and money.” 

“Be obtuse all you want, the result will be the same.” Double-dealing and theatrics were things he knew well. Laurent had read the poems and battle tactics in a fortnight. His brother had once told him, _“These flowers bloom here with the spirits, Lou. That is why they’re red.”_

“You’re not that much older than me. You don’t get to act like you’ve had this lifetime of experience like your uncle does. Like Auguste did.” 

Nicaise is one of the only people Laurent allows to speak of his brother. Laurent lets him talk. 

“You act like you’re so worldly from all your books and sitting on your brother’s lap, and the Regent’s.” 

“Nicaise, there is something you know that I don’t.” 

“What’s that.” 

“What it’s like to be hungry.” 

Nicaise displays fear for the first time this evening. He hides it quickly with petulance in the way only a pubescent can and makes it seem endearing. “You starve yourself.” 

“What it’s like to eye people’s plates in inns and pubs and have a quick hand. To make food disappear and pray it lasts until the next scraps.” 

“You always stare at Ancel, when he shows off his wrists and neck for Berenger.” Deflections thrown about like toys in a tantrum. 

“Why would I do that.” It isn’t a question, nor is the way Laurent cants his head coquettish. A stray lock falls over his ear, trailing like a golden earring. 

“You want to eat him. That’s what you all are: wolves.” And Nicaise is little more than a rabbit, fit for fattening before slaughter. 

Laurent huffs, smiling with his quicksilver mouth, hunter eyes narrowed. “Oh, no. We’re worse than wolves, Nicaise. We’re like you at your lowest: scavengers.” 

Laurent presses his lips to the open wound and sucks easily. He’s like a panther at a watering hole, warm red blood trekking under his tongue and pooling behind his teeth. He can hear Nicaise’s hummingbird heart as much as he schools his face to deny it. More viscous that wine, but not by much; red and holy. Tension hangs between them, dangling in its gibbet. 

Nicaise would never admit to it. But he is grateful to be pillowed on Laurent’s lap, the dull ache behind his eyes mixing with the nausea in his belly. He feels his color paling with his body heat, every dram with every degree. 

Laurent wouldn’t kill him.  
Laurent would lie to him.  
Laurent would trick him.  
Laurent would do every cruel misdeed to the boy,  
for every cruel misdeed wrought on him as a boy.

But he wouldn’t kill Nicaise.

_“Sneaking sweetmeats again?”_ Auguste would tease Laurent for the same, all while indulging him. 

_“Shut up.”_ He never meant it then; wouldn’t now. 

“Laurent.” Nicaise’s voice is quiet while he reclines against the chaise lounge. He sees the patterns in the fang marks, speckling him like constellations in the shapes of snakes and swords. Too deliberate to be charming, unlike his youthful freckles. “What’s it like to die?” 

Laurent leans back in his chair, looking up at the arched windows. Some said the brightest stars died first. “For me? Or for you?” 

Laurent can’t find enjoyment in baiting this child, of coercing fear the way his uncle forces him to kneel after all these years. He is a beautiful boy who won’t last into adulthood, by virtue of the fact that time marches through the springs of youth with boots made for men of war. It would be a miracle if he lasted past fifteen. 

The king’s men said the same of him. Disease had been on his side. 

“Is it different when you’re born the way you are,” Nicaise trails off. Laurent entertains him. The longer he stays, the longer he is safe. The game is short. 

“It’s slow and it aches, but quietly, I suppose. Everything stretches and atrophies. Everything goes to sleep, hibernation if you will. It’s very faint and imperceptible to most.” 

“And for me?” 

“I have only seen one living transform. It was,” Laurent pauses, mulling over a word to determine if it’s sufficient. “Uncomfortable.” 

“I can handle uncomfortable.” 

“Can you handle uncomfortable.” 

“How uncomfortable?” 

Laurent straightens himself, looking into Nicaise’s eyes in a way that leaves him more bare than nude; cadaver-split and visceral. All his gossamer lace intertwined in the tears of his fascia; pearls sewn with spittle in his esophagus. “You feel yourself fall asleep. 

It’s slow. 

It hurts to breathe, 

your lungs can’t **hold** what they’re capable of, your ribcage is too **sm a l l** for them. 

Everything flickers. A candle in an oppressive dark that it can’t fight. 

Spit and blood foam at your mouth; snot dribbles d  


o  
w  


n your nose and lips. Your pulse f a d e s with your breathing. You slip slowly into the black, like falling off your bed and down a ravine that never ends

you don’t even notice that you’re falling.

Then it _hits_ like a punch to the chest, rapid and violent like lightning for a moment and it s _to **ps**_ again. Your body fights but you don’t. You’re not anywhere. The foaming starts again and you open your eyes. 

Everything **focuses** and _u n f o cus e s_. Your body is rejecting; it’s convinced it’s sick and to an extent, it is. This should not be happening. This should not be happening but it is and you 

e x p e l ⹃⸻ ⸺ — ┄-- \--- -

everything your body can hold. Every bit of blood, bile, sweat and tears because the dead don’t need any of these things. Everything that made you alive is now **poison**. No _poison_ can kill you now. 

And finally, your cold body moves on your accord and you inhale the first breath of air and your eyes see. You feel so cold, everything is drawn so tight. Everything is c l e a r e r than any clean water, _sharper_ than any knife, more colorful than the richest tapestry. Every note of every cologne, wine is highlighted. You can taste the sugar and fat in the blood. You can hear a living heart beat across the room as if you are standing next to a drummer. 

It’s rather funny, having heightened senses when you’re dead.” 

Nicaise’s legs are split, ungainly as a calf’s as he kneels in front of Laurent. He looks into eyes that will live longer than they should, see more than necessary, in a body held together by cruelty. His wrist has long since stopped bleeding; two puncture wounds with all the inconspicuousness of cat scratches. 

Laurent doesn’t stop holding his hand, the division between drowning and life support blurred. 

“You’re wrong. If I become like you, he would never abandon me.” His breath shakes with his body, washed out. 

Laurent looks down on Nicaise, but there isn’t contempt. “Do you truly believe that, Nicaise.” 

It’s pity. 

His eyes have the futile hope of prayer. His tears have the bitter taste of truth. His body lacks experience, is an experience, is experiencing. Every ounce of his youth is tumbling down the hourglass, marching on with the certainty of time. 

“You were born like this, you will die like this; we don’t.” The boy gets up, gaining his legs back as he ambles towards his exit. Running through check after check is nothing more than stalling a better player’s time. 

“Do you doubt me, Nicaise?” The words carry the weight of judgement. 

“Do you doubt my uncle, your regent? Do you doubt me.” 

Nicaise waits at the door, not looking at Laurent or anything in particular. 

“Would you come with me if I offered for you,” Laurent says, no inflection of question or statement. Words for Nicaise to find in the vineyard and pluck, chew, savor. 

The juice is tart, sugar with a note of mold. Soured honeyed promises that will be crushed, drained and barrelled and left underground for years before bottled and sold in the light of day. Nicaise’s time is finite; the Regent’s tastes, even more so. 

Cherub face scrunched in doubt, Nicaise furrows his brow tighter into a snarl. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you.” 

“Oh, Nicaise,” Laurent coos with all the mockery of a jilted step-parent. “That would ruin you if I did, wouldn’t it.” 

Laurent looks to the window, navy and silver making way for lilac and pink. Sunbeams glitter along the tiles and wood as Laurent uncrosses his ankles. “You’ve five minutes to get back to your posts.” 

Nicaise looks at Laurent, weighing his options. “Your fault.” 

“Isn’t it always.” 

[](https://myvelvet-goldmine.tumblr.com/post/190093271277/blue-paint-highlighting-the-blueprint-of-his)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me yesterday: THANK FUCK I FINISHED THIS  
> me today: why do i insist on using coding/formatting to make writing a visual medium goddammit
> 
> shoutout to both mist and stills for reminding me that vampire stories are single-handed-ly the one genre one can be extremely pretentious and self-indulgent, no holds barred. so uh, have some of my litrp roots.
> 
> for the time being, it's complete. my capri muse has been extremely fickle and i am super deep in mdzs/gdc like whoa, but also have been real burnt out as of late and am trying to just...chill creatively. thank y'all for reading making it this far.

**Author's Note:**

> it's a prologue, i promise there's more.


End file.
